


Never-ending Story

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection, Unrequited Love, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13253853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: Severus knew he was that love she had always refused. And yet in his mind, pride wasn’t still sharp enough to make him give up.





	Never-ending Story

****

_Happy Valentine’s day._

He could’ve thrown up.

He would’ve liked to scratch his face and tear off his eyes, he would’ve liked to become dust.

Just so he wouldn’t have been forced to hear those words.

The voice was the one he liked to listen to, so was the tone, delicate and somehow stealthy.

To be wrong, was the person she was talking to.

Severus didn’t know what to do. He was aware of how much that love was destroying him, as he knew she was never going to love him.

If only she’d have noticed, if only she would’ve been able to see Potter through his eyes... she would’ve seen his lewdness, how he was merely driven by the instinct to hunt, so typical of men who deem themselves capable of love, whilst they just need a pray, a woman embodying their every desire.

And Lily had been James’ prey, hard to catch, but because of that much more intriguing.

She had fallen in his arms, in the end, giving in to that instinct bringing a woman to the easiest choice, accepting happiness in its most frivolous form, depriving herself of a love more complex yet more within reach.

Severus knew he was that love she had always refused. And yet in his mind, pride wasn’t still sharp enough to make him give up.

He had humiliated himself for her, but he was going to do it again. Just to hear those wishes of a happy Valentine’s day.

 

~

 

_Happy Valentine’s day._

She had smiled to him, then she had blushed.

She didn’t know what was going on, nor why she felt... happy, of course. But a happiness shadowed by an incomprehensible presence, inside of her, which didn’t allow her to express wholly what she felt.

And, in the end, she understood.

She understood when that shadow materialized in the stealthy steps behind her, she understood when she saw a dark figure getting away from that place to run inside the castle, in hiding.

She stood up, instinctively, hating herself because she would’ve had to explain her reaction to James.

But what was there to explain, in the end?

Should’ve she explained that friendship hadn’t been enough for Severus?

Should’ve she explained that she felt caught in the middle, that she didn’t know anymore what was right and what was wrong?

She should’ve explained that a small part of her would’ve love to follow him right now.

She would’ve loved to stop him, tell him she was sorry, that words didn’t matter more than the years spent together, than all he had taught her and then forgot.

She would’ve wanted to, but something held her back.

Perhaps the words just said, perhaps that ordinary ‘happy Valentine’s day’ which in a way sanctioned the union between her and James.

Or perhaps it was just the fear of what he would’ve told her, again, fear of being hurt, of losing once and for all that insane will of clarifying things with Severus.

And it wasn’t going to happen, for she kept still and he kept running.

She sat back, trying to give James a smile the more honest possible.

She would’ve liked for that day to be erased, to suffocate the desire of screaming ‘happy Valentine’s day’ to Severus.

Who wouldn’t have believed her anyway.

 

~

 

He was waiting for her. On those stairs, on that cold marble, almost as if coldness may soothe his feelings.

He had started out with good intentions, faded the moment he had seen her.

She smiled.

With no shadow on her face, no trace of bad thoughts.

So _different_ from him.

And when she had seen him, her smile had turned in such a serious expression that he couldn’t bear to watch it.

He had stood up, awkward as usual, and had gotten closed.

He couldn’t speak, nor tell her all he felt, all he wanted for her to know.

But she _knew_ , and just wanted to hear him say it.

“Lily, I... I’m sorry.” his voice faded, and he couldn’t go on. He stared at her for a moment that seemed eternal, and then he ran again.

He felt dead inside. As if his own silence had killed him, in a split second, as if she had taken away his entire existence.

After all, men have died from time to time. And when they had, worms have eaten them, disfiguring them, making them unrecognisable. But not for love. He would’ve liked to think that. Never for love.

And yet, that love had killed him.

That love, whose worms were devouring him from the inside, making tabula rasa of all he ever felt.

He had told Lily he was sorry, and it was true.

Just, consumed by the worms of that unstoppable death, he hadn’t had the courage to finish his sentence.

He closed up in the bathroom, nauseous. He raised his eyes and saw in the mirror the ruin he had become.

“Happy Valentine’s day, Lily.” he murmured. And then he thought of nothing else.

 

~

 

She stayed still for a few minutes.

She stared at the empty space where Severus had been, as if by doing so he would’ve appeared again.

When she realized it wasn’t going to happen, she went inside the dormitory like a puppet, drifting.

He was there, in front of her, saying those apologies that she was waiting and not expecting... and she had kept quiet.

She hadn’t been able to speak, to tell him she was sorry too, that she would’ve liked for things to go back to what they were before.

That she loved him more than anyone else, but that she knew affection wasn’t enough for him.

The guilt became more oppressing, until it vented in her tears.

She cried and cried, because she didn’t know what was the right thing to do.

She cried because once again he had run, and once again she had let him go away.

She cried, because crying didn’t suit her, because rage was in command.

But not right now, when she saw how she hurt him, maybe the same way he had hurt her.

They had wounded each other, yet they were still ready to admit that those wounds were a part of them, part of who they’d been, and would never be again.

Because men have hurt each other and died, from .time to time. And worms have eaten them, for them to become food for a barren earth, for them to melt into nothingness.

But not for love.

Never for love.

Because it was wrong to die because of him, killing any pleasant feeling in the name of a passion that should’ve been the best in the world. Because of an unrequited love, never existed, a love part foul and part pure.

A love that between Lily and Severus had already reaped too many victims for its inability to come clean.

Because she didn’t love him, and not loving him killed her.

“Happy Valentine’s day, Severus.” she murmured.

But the falseness of her voice made her cry even more.


End file.
